by Sylvia True
“Where?”
“Inishbofin, the island we’re going to. Off the west coast of Ireland.”
He picks it up, turns it over, spends more time studying the cork on the back than the picture. “It’s nice,” he says.
“I can’t wait to see it. Your place mat is Dingle,” she says proudly.
He moves his salad plate to the side and looks at the picture of the sea and the cliffs. “It’s nice,” he says again.
“I’m so excited.” She takes a bite of her salad.
He glances at her, his gray eyes strained. “Gail,” he says, then picks up his fork and uses it to push around one of the few pecans that is left.
She wants to keep showing him all the other coasters. Under his water glass is a picture of a puffin from one of the Blasket Islands. She has different coasters for the Baileys she has planned for after-dinner drinks. But she restrains her enthusiasm and wipes her mouth with the linen serviette. The red lipstick stain is prominent.
He sighs, putting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. His round bald spot looks well polished.
“We should talk,” he mumbles.
The words themselves wouldn’t be so terrible, but combined with his body language, she can’t ignore the feeling that she walked right into a stomach punch.
“Go ahead.” She folds her napkin so the red lipstick is hidden.
“I don’t think I can make the trip.”
She tends to steer away from ratings, but right now, on a scale of one to ten, this is about a five. He’s got a conference. He’s too busy working on an article. The trip will be postponed, but all will not be lost. This is manageable.
He pushes the place mat away and sighs again, this time more emphatically. “I’m sorry.” He lifts his head. His eyes are glassy with a slight blue haze that makes her wonder if he’s getting cataracts.
Although her heart is heavy, it has the ability to race rapidly, knocking against her rib cage.
“Work?” she asks.
A deep breath followed by yet another sigh. He shakes his head no.
“Is someone in your family sick?” It’s a silly, hopeful question, and she thinks of her demeanor in Dr. O’Reilly’s office, how strong she was. But sitting here, her deepest fear near the surface, makes her feel weak and withered.
“I’ve been trying to talk about this for a while now. I just couldn’t find the right time.”
She squares herself, holding the edge of the table. “You’ve had a slip?” She can manage a slip.
“I wish it were that simple.” He looks at the oil painting of the bowl of fruit. She bought it years ago in Italy. It was much too expensive.
“A relapse?” The letter from April makes a dot in her thoughts.
“No. I’ve been talking to my therapist, and we’ve decided that I’m not actually a sex addict.”
She stares at him. He’s not making sense. “Of course you are. How can he say that?”
“Because my behaviors don’t fit the addiction model.”
“Then what does he think is the matter?”
“I’m not sure he thinks anything is necessarily wrong with me. It’s more of an identity crisis than any sort of disease.”
She picks up her glass of water, but her hand is too unsteady to bring the drink to her mouth. “He told you that you were a sex addict. How could he not know that? It’s his job to diagnose people.”
“He made a mistake.”
“I hope you’re thinking of switching.”
“I don’t think it was entirely his fault that he misjudged. I may have led him to believe my behavior was addictive.” He looks away from the painting, scans the room, and then focuses on the place mat.
She flushes. Her heart continues its heavy pulsating. Her blood pressure must be soaring, and she didn’t take her medicine today. She didn’t want it to interact with the champagne.
“You’re just trying to give him an easy out. If he’s a good therapist, he would have picked up that you were skirting the real issue.”
He pokes his fork in the place mat. She wants to take it away from him, to tell him he’s going to ruin it.
“I’m in love with April.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and waves her hand in the air. “She’s a student. She’s young.”
“She’s not that young. She’s thirty-one.”
“You’re almost fifty-five.”
He keeps poking at the place mat. There are indentations in the blue sea. “I stopped seeing her for a time. I thought maybe I did have addictive tendencies, but I kept thinking about her. She returned to Harvard and we began meeting.”
“So you lied about not knowing she was back?”
He nods.
She can’t breathe. She looks at her place mat, thinking about the suite she reserved with the plush furniture and the binoculars. The simple touch of binoculars to enable guests to bird-watch convinced her to book that hotel.
“I know this is difficult. But I couldn’t keep up the lies.” He touches her arm.
“But then … I mean, what about the other women? It wasn’t just April.”
“There was actually only one other woman, and it was after April left the first time. I was desperately trying to figure out what was wrong. I wanted to believe I was a sex addict. I really did.” He looks at her now, his eyes clear.
“You are a sex addict,” she says.
“No, Gail, I’m not. I’m in love with April. I have been for over two years now. I’ve tried to stop seeing her. I wanted to make our marriage work.”
“You need another opinion. You can’t just rely on this one therapist.”
“It doesn’t matter what another therapist says, it matters what I know in my heart to be true.” He puts a hand on his chest.
“But it’s not true. We’ve worked through so much. You can’t just throw it all away.”
“We have worked through a lot. And you’re a wonderful, intelligent companion, and I will always deeply love you.”
“But…” She feels as if she can’t swallow. She puts a hand on her throat.
“Would you like me to open the champagne? Maybe you need a glass.”
That seems cruel, a glass of celebratory champagne as an elixir for her broken heart. “No, thank you.”
“Perhaps you should eat something.”
All she wants is the Hostess cupcakes that are hidden in her closet. “No, thank you.”
“Gail, I couldn’t keep up the lie. I couldn’t go on a trip with you when I knew that I was betraying you.”
“We can still go.” Her heart, which has continued to beat ferociously, feels lighter.
“That wouldn’t be wise.”
“I have all the places booked. We’ll go as friends.” She doesn’t really want to have sex with him anyway. Not because she’s not attracted to him, but because she always feels so ashamed of her own body. “We can have fun. Be companions.” She’s convinced he’ll see this is a good idea.
“I don’t think you’ll want to be with me once this sinks in.”
“April’s a child. She’s a fling. You can see her if you need to. We’re meant for each other. We’re equals intellectually.” She reaches for his hand. He puts it in his lap.
“No. She’s not a child, and it’s not a fling. I want to be with her.”
She needs to make herself clearer. “We’ll share this apartment. We’ll still have our life together. You’ll just see April when you need to. We’re compatible and that’s what’s really important in a relationship.”
“Gail.” He sighs. “We’re not really compatible.”
“Of course we are. We like the same things. We enjoy each other’s company. We don’t argue.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighs again. “I can’t do it. I can’t live here.”
“But all your books are here. And we’ve decorated together…” She wants to continue, but she looks into his eyes and sees resolve. She has lost this last desperate attempt.
On her lap, she unfolds her napkin and looks at the red lipstick stain.
“When I’m gone, you’ll feel better,” he says. “You won’t have to worry anymore about what I’m doing. You’ll be free. It will be like a burden has been lifted.”
Perhaps the shade of lipstick is too red. An orange tint might be more suitable. She stretches the fabric, studies the stain.
“I understand you’re upset,” he says. “But it would be terribly unfair of me to stay. You deserve to be loved.”
She moves her salad plate, places her napkin over the place mat, and compares the red to the color of the apple in the painting. The apple is more subtle.
“Gail?”
Color is so important. Color is everything. She’s spent much too much time ignoring the color of things. The shades in the room have too much green. Why hadn’t she seen that until now?
“I’m going to go out for a while. Let you think about this. All right?” he asks.
At least she chose her nail color wisely. Yes, peach is almost always right. Pinks can be good as well. It’s just that they have the danger of seeming girlish. Someone told her mental hospitals had pink rooms. It calms people, supposedly.
“If you could become a color, what would you choose?” Her voice is curious.
“Please, Gail. Stop playing these games. It’s not going to help either one of us.”
“I think you’d be blue.” She imagines him encased in a block of ice. Vine-like fissures entangle him.
“I’m not doing this.” He stands. “If you want to talk seriously, that’s fine. But I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
Jonah walks away. His aura isn’t blue, but dirt brown. How did she manage to misjudge him so drastically?
The front door closes. She opens the champagne, pours herself a glass, and studies the liquid. It’s the color of empty.
* * *
He’s been gone for two hours and thirty-six minutes. She’s eaten a box of Hostess cupcakes and three candy bars. All the sugar in the world isn’t going to help, but she needs to restock. There is no possible way she will make it through the night without snacks. Actually, she can’t imagine making it through the next hour. Her heart races, and as a cautionary measure, she takes out the blood pressure cuff that she bought at Walgreens a year ago. It reads 220 over 150. She stares at the numbers until they blur. Her blood pressure has never been that high. She takes four Atenolol. Twenty minutes later, the numbers are down only a few points. She takes three more pills.
She must have sounded as if she were out of her mind, talking about colors the way she did before he left. She should have negotiated, reasonably, asked for a six-month trial period, time to see a new couples’ therapist, time for her to work on her weight issues, time for him to reconsider. Why does she have to become such a weak, insecure woman around him? Where does the formidable, competent Judge Larson go?
Her therapist would tell her this is the time to call someone for help, but what would she say? That her husband isn’t even a sex addict? How ludicrous would that sound? She holds the banister as she descends the stairs. She wheezes. Her asthma is acting up. Why hasn’t he returned yet? What if he went to April’s to celebrate? Would he be that callous? She searches for her inhaler and absentmindedly picks up her car keys from the kitchen counter.
Outside, standing on the sidewalk, her legs feel water-logged and swollen. She’s probably retaining fluids again. Nothing a diuretic won’t cure. The yellow street lamp gives her car a green hue. Just as she puts a foot on the road, a teenager, smoking a cigarette and not watching where he’s going, bumps into her. Her ankles, thick with water, wobble, and she falls slowly, first to her knees. Her left elbow bangs the pavement, her pocketbook flies out. Loose change rolls away as she lies prostrate on the sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” The young man’s voice sounds as if it recently dropped.
Gail manages to sit. The boy drops his cigarette and stomps it out.
“Just get me my purse,” Gail says.
He does as he’s told, then lingers.
Gail glances at her torn stockings and sprawled legs. “Help me up.” She extends her good arm.
The boy pulls. Gail rocks a bit, but she’s stuck. The humiliation is unbearable. “Go away,” she shouts. He does.
She knows what she has to do to get up, and she doesn’t want anyone bearing witness. Gail maneuvers herself so that she’s on all fours. A pebble grinds into her palm as a few raindrops splat in front of her. Carefully, she moves her hands a little closer to her knees. She places one foot, then the next onto the sidewalk. In stages, she pushes herself up.
She’s grateful that it’s dark and the holes in her stockings are hidden by her skirt. She hopes to God no one was watching. To have to display oneself like a dog in front of one’s house is as degrading as life can get. Then she remembers Jonah left her.
She hobbles to the car. As she slides in, every bone aches, and her left elbow throbs. She moves the seat back in order to get some extra breathing room, even though that means her feet can barely reach the pedals. For ten minutes she sits, catching her breath, regaining her bearings. The light rain patters and glistens on the windshield. The heat will soon end. She massages her elbow, rubs her scraped knees, and feels old and decrepit. Certainly she can’t go to the local convenience store looking like this.
Finally she starts the engine and decides to take Storrow Drive. Her extremities still ache, but a deeper pain in her chest begins to take over. She feels as if she’s been shot.
On 95 North, her breathing is still wheezy, but her heart isn’t racing quite as much. Deep breaths hurt, so she takes shallow ones and grips the wheel. A large green sign for Gloucester hangs above. For a moment the pain disappears as she thinks about Long Beach and the cottage there. She can hear the lapping of the waves and the cries of seagulls. She drives north. Home is toxic, a mocking reminder of the lie her life has been. She rolls down her window, lets the breeze caress her face, and thinks of how worried Jonah will be when he comes home to an empty house.
The parking lot is deserted. Gail leaves her purse and the keys in the car. No one is around. Nothing will get stolen. Her feet are still swollen, but her elbow is what hurts the most right now. She can barely bend it. Tomorrow she’ll get it checked out. The beach is only a few feet ahead. Her body feels odd, leaden and heavy, tired and at the same time feathery, as if she is filled with helium. It must be the Atenolol.
The air smells thick with salt and seaweed. Soft rain drizzles as waves spill onto the sand. The heels of her shoes sink, and so she steps out of her pumps. The sand is pleasantly damp and cool. If only she wasn’t wearing stockings. She lifts her skirt and begins to roll down her nylons, but when they’re close to her knees, she recognizes her mistake. She’s unsteady, and the best course of action will be to plop down right here. Her tailbone sustains a hard knock. Nonetheless, she’s managed to sit and remain in one piece. She finishes taking off her stockings, then lies on her back, stretching out her arms and legs. She closes her eyes. Rain falls on her face, her lips. She licks a few drops, but soon her blouse is wet, uncomfortably sticking to her. She sits up, takes it off, then works her way out of her skirt.
It’s heavenly not to be so restricted. She glances around. Behind her is a cement retaining wall. To her right and left, there’s just beach, and in front of her the ocean. It’s not easy taking off her camisole with her bad arm, but she manages. Finally, she unhooks her bra and pulls off her underpants. She can breathe again. She thinks of floating on a raft, of the sun warming her, the water sparkling around her, the waves rocking her.
She wants to feel lighter, freer. She rolls onto her side, once again gets onto all fours, and pushes herself up. With open arms, like wings, she walks toward the water.
Her feet sink in the wet sand. The first wave that crashes around her ankles feels like ice. But soon her feet are numb, blissfully devoid of any feeling. Inch by inch, methodically, she numbs her legs until there is no s
ensation. The water is at her thighs. She looks at the twin lighthouses on Thacher Island. The rain has stopped momentarily, and she can make out a cloud, a wisp of a thing, between the two lighthouses. They look as if they are holding hands, one watching out for the other. She will always be Jonah’s lighthouse, and he hers. A wave comes in. The water swells to her belly. It’s shockingly cold, but she doesn’t mind. As it ebbs out, she feels the grip behind her knees. Her body falls forward, her head plunges into the sea. She extends her arms, pushes down on the water, and reaches air for a moment. She exhales but is pulled under before she has time to take a breath.
Time slows. She can hear raindrops hit the water. Then they morph into beautiful golden orbs, suns. All around her, fire falls. Balls of orange, the color of autumn, dapple her world. Just as she feels safe, cradled in a womb of salt water with the two towers beaming their lights above her, another wave pulls her to the surface, and she gulps at the air.
Kathryn
Friday morning, the heat has broken. Outside, it’s that perfect temperature that licks up sweat the moment it appears. Kathryn finds her running pace. The sidewalk feels as if it has extra give this morning. Seeing Hannah return to group was a huge relief. Losing Lizzy was unexpected, but Kathryn feels good about the choices Lizzy is making. People really do change. The group will go through stages of growth, but it will not end. Last night Kathryn sent an e-mail to a number of colleagues informing them that she had a few open spaces. She is sure there are women who could use the support and wisdom Gail, Bridget, and Hannah have to share.
The moment Kathryn opens her apartment door, she hears the phone and dashes to pick it up.
“Kathryn Leblanc.” Her voice is alert, ready. She expects it is someone querying about the group.
“It’s Bridget. Did you see the news?” The words race out.
“No,” Kathryn answers. Her first thought is that there was some sort of report on missing children and Hannah’s daughter was mentioned.
“They showed Gail. A picture of her face.”
It’s likely some high-profile case, and Gail’s occupation will no longer be a secret. “What did they say?” she asks, beginning to stretch out her calf.
